Project Tango's 3D mapping capabilities revealed in teardown

Project Tango, Google’s latest prototype smartphone with 3D mapping technology, is now in the hands of developers. And if you are wondering exactly what sort of hardware is lurking under the hood, look no further as iFixit has you covered.

The detailed teardown unearthed a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 clocked at 2.3GHz, 2GB of RAM, 64GB of onboard storage, a microSD card slot, a 4-megapixel rear-facing camera, a fisheye-style rear-facing camera, an infrared projector and a front-facing shooter with a 120 degree field of view.

Three USB ports grace the device, along with a 5-inch display and a 3,000mAh battery to keep everything ticking along throughout the day.

Above all, the most interesting component inside the device is no doubt the infrared processor and projector. The team was able to power it up and learned that it works much like a Kinect, beaming out tiny dots that are picked up by the rear camera. It would appear that the size of the dots – smaller meaning closer to the camera and larger meaning further away – allow the device to determine depth.

In terms of repairability, Project Tango earned a favorable nine out of 10 (10 being the easiest to repair). That isn’t really surprising at this stage as the device is pre-consumer and is more focused on functionally than finish.

Perhaps more interesting than the teardown itself will be seeing what developers manage to do with the hardware over the coming months.